Criminal Mischief: Episode #36: Identifying Skeletal Remains

Criminal Mischief: Episode #36: Identifying Skeletal Remains

LISTEN:https://soundcloud.com/authorsontheair/episode-36-identifying-skeletal-remains

PAST SHOWS: http://www.dplylemd.com/criminal-mischief.html

SHOW NOTES: http://www.dplylemd.com/criminal-mischief-notes/36-identifying-skeletal.html

8 Body Parts Forensic Scientists Use To ID A Body: https://www.forensicsciencetechnician.org/8-body-parts-forensic-scientists-use-to-id-a-body/

Investigating Forensics: Forensic Anthropology: http://www.sfu.museum/forensics/eng/pg_media-media_pg/anthropologie-anthropology/

Analyzing The Bones: What Can A Skeleton Tell You?: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/analysing-the-bones-what-can-a-skeleton-tell-you.html

FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/forensics-for-dummies.html

HOWDUNNIT:FORENSICS: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/howdunnit-forensics.html

 

Criminal Mischief: Episode #35: Corpse ID

Criminal Mischief: Episode #35: Corpse ID

 

 

Most corpses that are the victims of foul play are easily identified because they’re found in familiar places and reported by folks who knew them. But those found in remote or odd places with no ID create problems for investigators. In these cases, identifying the corpse is a critical step in solving the case.

LISTEN: https://soundcloud.com/authorsontheair/episode-35-corpse-id

PAST SHOWS: http://www.dplylemd.com/criminal-mischief.html

SHOW NOTES: http://www.dplylemd.com/criminal-mischief-notes/35-corpse-id.html

Crime Museum: Postmortem Identification: https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/forensic-investigation/postmortem-identification/

The Conversation: How Do We Identify Human Remains?: http://theconversation.com/how-do-we-identify-human-remains-121315

NamUs: https://www.namus.gov

Crime and Science Radio Interview with Todd Matthews of NamUs: http://www.dplylemd.com/csr-past-details/todd-matthews.html

 

FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/forensics-for-dummies.html

 

HOWDUNNIT:FORENSICS: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/howdunnit-forensics.html

 

Q&A with Expanded Audio Discussions Now on the Suspense Magazine Website

Q&A with Expanded Audio Discussions Now on the Suspense Magazine Website

Check out the new posts John Raab of Suspense Magazine and I put together. Read the Q&As and listen to the expanded discussions. Hope each proves helpful for your crime fiction.

Can DNA Be Used To Identify Multiple Assailants In a Three Decade Old Rape?

http://suspensemagazine.com/blog2/2016/12/20/d-p-lyles-forensic-file-episode-1/

In 1863, Could An Autopsy Accurately Determine the Cause of Death?

http://suspensemagazine.com/blog2/2017/01/09/in-1863-could-an-autopsy-accurately-determine-the-cause-of-death-d-p-lyle-answers-this/

Can My Female Character Cause Her Pregnancy To Become “Stone Baby” By Shear Will?

http://suspensemagazine.com/blog2/2016/12/31/can-my-female-character-cause-her-pregnancy-to-become-stone-baby-by-sheer-will/

More to come.

Want more cool questions from crime writers? Check out my three Q&A books.

More Info and List of Included Questions

More Info and List of Included Questions

More Info and List of Included Questions

 

Crime and Science Radio: NAMUS: Naming The Unidentified, Finding The Missing: An Interview With J. Todd Matthews

 

NAMUS: Naming The Unidentified, Finding The Missing: An Interview With J. Todd Matthews

BIO: Todd Matthews is the Director of Case Management and Communications for NamUs. He  joined the NamUs management team in 2011 as the program transitioned to the UNT Health Science Center. In his current role, he manages the NamUs Regional System Administrator staff, oversees quality assurance and quality control of NamUs data, performs outreach and training, coordinates all NamUs print and broadcast media, and serves as the media spokesperson for NamUs.

Todd Matthews previously served as a NamUs Regional System Administrator and was a member of the NamUs Advisory Board for the development of the NamUs database and program. In those roles, he piloted efforts to coordinate data exchanges between NamUs and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

He has also served as the Media Director for two important volunteer programs related to missing and unidentified persons: The Doe Network and Project EDAN. He has worked as a blogger for Discovery ID and served as a consultant for Jerry Brukheimer on “The Forgotten” and Dick Wolf on “Lost & Found”, two scripted series related to missing and unidentified persons

LISTEN: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2016/12/03/crime-and-science-radio-with-special-todd-matthews

Link will go live Saturday 12-3–16 at 10 a.m. Pacific

LINKS:

NamUs: National Missing and Unidentified Persons System http://www.namus.gov

University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Center for Human Identification/Forensic Science Unit  http://www.untfsu.com/index.html

Todd Matthews on UNT site: http://www.untfsu.com/Staff/ToddMatthews.html

Crime and Science Radio 2015 Interview With Todd Matthews https://crimeandscienceradio.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=615&action=edit

Billy’s Law http://lostnmissing.org/billys-law/

The Dead Unknown: Part 1 Mountain Jane Doe (Reveal Films)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0vNQXsvrRU

The Dead Unknown: Part 2 The Exhumation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN4ZsjgUO-4

The Dead Unknown: Part 3 What Secrets Lie Beneath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05KRjEqEcl8

The Dead Unknown: Part 4 She Always Had a Name https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRK7muHRXJ4

Mountain Jane Doe Identified https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugiLiKi-RA

NY legislators want unidentified dead in federal database, Daily Freeman (from the Associated Press) July 6, 2016

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20160706/ny-legislators-want-unidentified-dead-in-federal-database

“Who Killed Jane Doe #59? The Case of Reet Jurvetson – the fifth estate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTyQhn1MjX8

Project EDAN http://www.untfsu.com/forensicArt.html

“Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains: The Nation’s Silent Mass Disaster,” NIJ report by Nancy Ritter. http://www.nij.gov/journals/256/pages/missing-persons.aspx

“Identifying Missing Persons and Unidentified Decedents” NIJ Website Law Enforcement topics http://nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/investigations/missing-persons/Pages/welcome.aspx

The Doe Network: http://doenetwork.org

Black and Missing Foundatation  http://www.blackandmissinginc.com/cdad/

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children http://www.missingkids.com/home

PBS Frontline‘s “Post Mortem” series map of death investigation in the U.S. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/map-death-in-america/

“Uniform Protocol to Address Unidentified Human Remains and Missing Persons,” Marzena H. Mulawka, Ismail M. Sebetan, and Paul C. Stein, in The Journal of Forensic Identification, available through NCJRS https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=254866

“Resolving Missing and Unidentified Person Cases Using Today’s Technologies,” Dustin Driscoll, National Missing and Unidentified Persons (NamUs) Analyst, in The Police Chief Magazine, May 2013 http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=2925&issue_id=52013

Unidentified remains: What’s known about some of the nameless dead (database); Cleveland Plain Dealer August 8, 2016http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/08/unidentified_remains_whats_kno.html

How Kathy Thornton solved her sister’s 39-year-old murder case; Miami Herald, November 23, 2016 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article116796023.html

 

FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES Release Day

 

Forensics For Dummies Updated 2nd Edition is now available.

Get it through your local Indie Bookstore or here:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Forensics-Dummies-Douglas-P-Lyle/dp/1119181658

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/forensics-for-dummies-douglas-p-lyle/1013991421

 

Forensics For Dummies, 2nd Edition Coming Soon

 

 

Just got the new cover for Forensics For Dummies, 2nd Edition.

It will be released from Wiley on 2-29-16

Pre-Order now

 

Crime and Science Radio: Bones Tell the Tale: An Interview With Forensic Anthropologist and Best-selling Author Kathy Reichs

 

BIO: Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Her other Temperance Brennan novels include Death du Jour, Deadly Décisions, Fatal Voyage, Grave Secrets, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning, Cross Bones, Break No Bones, Bones to Ashes, Devil Bones, 206 Bones, Spider Bones, Flash and Bones, Bones Are Forever, and Bones of the Lost, and the Temperance Brennan e-short, Bones In Her Pocket. In addition, Kathy co-authors the Virals young adult series with her son, Brendan Reichs. The best-selling titles are: Virals, Seizure, Code, and Exposure, along with two Virals e-novellas, Shift and Swipe. These books follow the adventures of Temperance Brennan’s great niece, Tory Brennan.  Dr. Reichs is also a producer of the hit Fox TV series, Bones, which is based on her work and her novels.

From teaching FBI agents how to detect and recover human remains, to separating and identifying commingled body parts in her Montreal lab, as a forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs has brought her own dramatic work experience to her mesmerizing forensic thrillers. For years she consulted to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, and continues to do so for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec. Dr. Reichs has travelled to Rwanda to testify at the UN Tribunal on Genocide, and helped exhume a mass grave in Guatemala. As part of her work at JPAC (Formerly CILHI) she aided in the identification of war dead from World War II, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Dr. Reichs also assisted with identifying remains found at ground zero of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Dr. Reichs is one of only eighty-two forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. She served on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, and is currently a member of the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. She is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

Dr. Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern. She now divides her time between Charlotte, NC and Montreal, Québec.

LISTEN: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2015/12/05/crime-and-science-radio-with-special-guest-bestselling-author-kathy-reichs

LINKS:

Kathy Reich’s Website: http://kathyreichs.com

Kathy Reich’s Blog: http://kathyreichs.com/category/blog/

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Kathy-Reichs/e/B000APED9E

Kathy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kathyreichs

Kathy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kathyreichsbooks

 

 

 

Crime and Science Radio: Identifying The Dead, Finding The Missing: An Interview With Todd Matthews of NamUs

BIO: Todd Matthews is the Director of Case Management and Communications for NamUs. He  joined the NamUs management team in 2011 as the program transitioned to the UNT Health Science Center. In his current role, he manages the NamUs Regional System Administrator staff, oversees quality assurance and quality control of NamUs data, performs outreach and training, coordinates all NamUs print and broadcast media, and serves as the media spokesperson for NamUs.

Todd Matthews previously served as a NamUs Regional System Administrator and was a member of the NamUs Advisory Board for the development of the NamUs database and program. In those roles, he piloted efforts to coordinate data exchanges between NamUs and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

He has also served as the Media Director for two important volunteer programs related to missing and unidentified persons: The Doe Network and Project EDAN. He has worked as a blogger for Discovery ID and served as a consultant for Jerry Brukheimer on “The Forgotten” and Dick Wolf on “Lost & Found”, two scripted series related to missing and unidentified persons.

LISTEN: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2015/11/21/crime-and-science-radio-with-special-guest-todd-matthews

LINKS:

NamUs: National Missing and Unidentified Persons System http://www.namus.gov

University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Center for Human Identification/Forensic Science Unit  http://www.untfsu.com/index.html

Todd Matthews on UNT site: http://www.untfsu.com/Staff/ToddMatthews.html

Project EDAN http://www.untfsu.com/forensicArt.html

“Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains: The Nation’s Silent Mass Disaster,” NIJ report by Nancy Ritter. http://www.nij.gov/journals/256/pages/missing-persons.aspx

“Identifying Missing Persons and Unidentified Decedents” NIJ Website Law Enforcement topics http://nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/investigations/missing-persons/Pages/welcome.aspx

The Doe Network: http://doenetwork.org

Black and Missing Foundatation  http://www.blackandmissinginc.com/cdad/

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children http://www.missingkids.com/home

PBS Frontline‘s “Post Mortem” series map of death investigation in the U.S. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/map-death-in-america/

“Uniform Protocol to Address Unidentified Human Remains and Missing Persons,” Marzena H. Mulawka, Ismail M. Sebetan, and Paul C. Stein, in The Journal of Forensic Identification, available through NCJRS https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=254866

“Resolving Missing and Unidentified Person Cases Using Today’s Technologies,” Dustin Driscoll, National Missing and Unidentified Persons (NamUs) Analyst, in The Police Chief Magazine, May 2013 http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=2925&issue_id=52013

 

Getting Rid Of A Body Isn’t Easy

Killers often think that disposing of a corpse is easy. And important. If there is no body surely they can’t be charged with murder. Right? Fortunately, they’re wrong on both counts.

A case in point: 23 year-old French art history student Eva Bourseau.

Seems that three of her classmates killed her over a dispute about a drug debt. Drug debts are never good things.

So okay, now they have a body. What are the going to do about it? As good students of Breaking Bad, they decided to dissolve the corpse in acid. At least they did use plastic rather than a metal tub, as, yes, acid loves to eat up metal.

But they also discovered that acid doesn’t always do the trick. Jeffrey Dahmer discovered the same thing.

Hell, even Dexter tried it.

 

Blue-eyed Mesolithic Caveman?

Was there an ancient Marlboro Man? Cool, swarthy. handsome?

DNA obtained from the wisdom tooth of the 7000-year-old remains of an European Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) hunter-gather has been analyzed and suggests that the man had dark skin and hair, blue eyes, and was likely lactose intolerant.

Artist Impression of Mesolithic Hunter-gatherer

We are all familiar with DNA’s use in solving crimes by matching a suspect to a crime scene and, particularly mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), in ancestry investigations. DNA analysis can also often reveal sex, race, and hair and eye color.

Mesolithic Skull

Mesolithic Life in Europe Before the Curse of Farming: http://archaeology.about.com/od/mesolithicarchaic/qt/Mesolithic.htm

Historic Timeline: http://www.historiclandscape.co.uk/exploring_time.html

Stone Age Timelines: http://www.historiclandscape.co.uk/exploring_time.html